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MARYSVILLE, Ohio — Steffen Baldwin had driven more than 1,900 miles across the country to
deliver two dogs, one to a rescue for rehabilitation and one to a friend, when he got a message
from a volunteer.

Have you seen the video from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals? We’re in it.

As director of the Union County Humane Society, Baldwin recognized that whatever came next
probably wouldn’t be good.

Earlier this month, PETA posted a nearly 10-minute video of undercover clips taken at 25
shelters across the country. The video’s premise is that no-kill shelters are overcrowded and that
they unfairly turn unadoptable dogs and cats away, leaving them vulnerable to abuse, abandonment
and gruesome deaths.

The group says that people should support and adopt animals only from open-admission shelters
and that laws should promote more-aggressive spaying and neutering programs to prevent
overpopulation.

The six-second Union County clip shows a volunteer saying, “Right now we’re not accepting any
cats. We are so overcrowded.”

Union County has never billed itself as a no-kill shelter, and Baldwin doesn’t understand why it
was included. The shelter never euthanizes simply to make space, but it does euthanize animals
because of illness, injury or behavior.

Operating also as the taxpayer-funded county dog pound, the shelter cannot turn away stray dogs,
but it does reject cats or owner-surrendered dogs if there is no room.

Baldwin agrees that warehousing of animals in unsatisfactory conditions is inhumane. “It’s a
serious problem that needs discussion, so PETA highlights a legitimate concern. But that’s not what
we do here,” he said. “I don’t understand their motives.”

Daphna Nachminovitch, a senior vice president at PETA, said the clips were compiled
randomly.

She said the campaign isn’t an attack against likely well-meaning shelters but instead is
commentary on what she called an epidemic.

“Without an open-admission shelter, what is a citizen to do with an animal they can no longer
keep?” she said. “The no-kill philosophy doesn’t work. While we wish no animals to be euthanized, a
good, controlled death is always preferred over a tragic, accidental, bad one.”

Pets without Parents, a no-kill shelter on Oakland Park Avenue in Clintonville, also was in the
video. That shelter’s director did not return a call.

The Humane Society of the United States and the Ohio Farm Bureau have both pledged their support
for Baldwin’s organization since the video surfaced.

But Baldwin’s response to it also has drawn attention.

The shelter recently underwent a privately funded renovation, but it’s $30,000 short of its
$360,000 fundraising goal.

Baldwin published a letter inviting PETA to visit and suggesting how the organization could
help.

“You do not need to sneak around or send in undercover people, as we have nothing to hide here,”
he said. He wrote that $15,000 would allow them to build another 15 kennels and, with an average
stay of less than three weeks, they could serve another 312 dogs annually.

“I am sure you will see the value in $15,000 to save lives,” he wrote. “To make things easier, I
have included a link to donate to our project directly.”

Nachminovitch said she’d seen the request, and money won’t solve the problem. She added: There
never will be enough room.